So Cromwell Loves...

Isn't there a statistic that says all men think about sex every 30 seconds?
Was one of those 30 seconds ;)

Mantels book is historic fiction. It is a fictional novel that simply uses characters from history.

One response to this would be to point out that Mantel has a passion for the truth—“I make things up most reluctantly,” she says, “I am not cavalier”—and that, in writing “Wolf Hall”, she was actually driven by a desire to set the record straight, to correct public misconceptions of Thomas Cromwell as a pantomime villain, and to show that Thomas More was more flawed and less saintly than Robert Bolt’s “A Man for all Seasons” had led us to believe. Another is to ask whether any writer, by switching off the imagination and sticking to the facts, can ever hope to arrive at absolute historical truth. Paul Lay, whose own youthful passion for “real” history was fed by the novels of Robert Graves and Mary Renault, doubts it: “History, by its nature,” he says, “is a very uncertain practice.”

For some historians, “Wolf Hall” has provided not just entertainment but intellectual impetus. Writing recently in History Today, Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of biographies of Henry VIII and Thomas Cranmer, and most recently of a monumental history of Christianity, revealed that Mantel’s “startlingly accurate” recreation of Henry VIII’s England had spurred him on to embark on a full-scale biography of Thomas Cromwell. He had, he admitted, “gasped at the detail which Mantel knew and had woven into her story, without any feeling of ostentation”; and he is impatient for the sequel. He is not alone.

Historically, Cromwell brokered a marriage between Seymour and Henry. Now in the series this angling started well before the beheading of Anne. I think that's why they showed her being studied by him so much.

Historically, Cromwell brokered a marriage between Seymour and Henry. Now in the series this angling started well before the beheading of Anne. I think that's why they showed her being studied by him so much.

I assumed this about Jane as well -- I think Cromwell is a long-term schemer, so him looking for an alternative in case Anne goes south isn't out of the question.

Someone on tumblr posted a section out of the book in which Cromwell fantasizes about touching Anne, as he does in the series -- so at least it's cannon, although it's still odd. Maybe to show how desirable a woman she was, despite her overall abrasive personality?

I agree with you MissBono, this was also my reading of the book. He is also haunted by the memory of Anselma, who was a 'great love' of his life and constantly thinks of his girls and his wife.

He is fascinated by Jane, he doesn't quite know why and thinks she might be of use to him, or that he might be able to do something to improve her situation.

I think the fantasy scene with Anne is in the book (he wonders what it would be like to touch that pale flesh - or something like that). It happens at the point where he has made himself indispensable to both the King and Anne and he is beginning to understand Henry's attraction to Anne (and respect her strength and determination). To start with he doesn't understand why the King wants her, as she was not a 'great' beauty and he thought her skinny and abrasive. He grows to understand her attractions and to respect and even like her to some extent.

He's not interested in Mary Boleyn, beyond the intelligence she can give him but he does like her and enjoys talking to her. He always wishes her well and thinks about the possibility of marrying her, although he doesn't consider it seriously.

Mary Boleyn asked him to marry her so she could get away from the court, her family and her sister. He said if he did, her family would kill her. He comes from a lowly estate and would be totally unacceptable to them. He would marry his sister in law if her husband would die. He is one of those people who wheeze around for years but hang on like the last leaf on the tree.

I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else